Enjoy the imperial sights of Vienna and walking tours of exotic Dubrovnik. Then delve into the region's natural wonders: hike through the waterfall wonderland at Plitvice Lakes National Park, drive the winding road to the Julian Alps, and watch the sun dip slowly into the Adriatic from the Dalmatian Coast.Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. He'll help you plan where to go and what to see, depending on the length of your trip. You'll learn which sights are worth your time and money, and how to get around by train, bus, car, and boat. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

    While prepared for sunshine and storms 13º south of the equator, the Patras family are ill-equipped for much else. Interspersed with snippets from Ann’s letters home, this crazy story describes encounters ranging from lizards to lions, servants to shopping shortages, and cockroaches to curfews.

    But ever since his student days, the BBC security correspondent has done some epicly hard travelling in a remarkable number of countries. Drawing on the diaries, sketches and photos he kept during his travels, his immaculately observed accounts of these often strange, sometimes daring, adventures in many of the world's most out of the way places form the backbone of his new book.In June 2004, while reporting on what should have been a routine assignment in Riyadh, his life - never mind his ability to travel the world - was nearly brought to a violent end by Islamist gunmen. Incredibly, Frank not only survived being shot six times at point blank range but also, against all the odds and through force of will, has found himself looking towards those far horizons once more. He's not only been slalom skiing in the Alps, scuba diving in the Red Sea and explored the jungle in northern Thailand. And he is also reporting once more from far-flung destinations like Afghanistan and Colombia - and this is a man who no longer has the use of his legs...This is Frank Gardner's compelling, personal yet unsentimental account of the myriad adventures that made him the man he was on that fateful day five years ago - and of the journeys he's made since, and how they've helped him to become the remarkable and inspiring individual he is today.

    At the age of 34, John Pollack quit a prestigious speechwriting job on Capitol Hill to pursue an idea he had harbored since the age of six: to build a boat out of wine corks and take it on an epic journey.In Cork Boat, Pollack tells the charming and uplifting story of this unlikely adventure. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save corks, corrals a brilliant but disorganized partner, and cajoles more than a hundred volunteers to help build the boat, many until their fingers bleed. Hired as a speechwriter for President Clinton midway through construction, Pollack soon has the White House saving corks, too. Ultimately, he and his crew set sail down the Douro River in Portugal, where the boat becomes a national sensation. Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of camaraderie, determination, and the power of imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Yet he is still alone and - in a moment of rare self-knowledge - decides that the only way to find the girl of his dreams is to stop looking for her. Yet barely a week after coming to this momentous decision, an email from an old school friend re-introduces him to Alice - a paid-up city girl who speaks only three words of French and comes with an expensive shoe habit and a deep-rooted mistrust of the countryside. Even worse, she lives and works on the far side of the Atlantic, in Baltimore, USA.And so begins an unlikely romance, conducted across two continents, as Michael the rustic hermit struggles to unlearn his lessons in living alone and contemplates the alarming prospect of sharing his French life (not to mention his aeroplane) with someone else...

    Arguably the greatest adventure skier to ever live, Doug Coombs pioneered hundreds of first descents....

    In the style of Studs Terkel (Working, Hard Times, The Good War) and Dave Isay (Listening Is an Act of Love), Londoners offers up  the stories, the gripes, the memories, and the dreams of those in the great and vibrant British metropolis who “love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it,” from a West End rickshaw driver to a Soldier of the Guard at Buckingham Palace to a recovering heroin addict seeing Big Ben for the very first time. Published just in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Londoners is a glorious literary celebration of one of the world’s truly great cities.

    A one-night stand with Natasha Peters has got her pregnant. Now he has two options: give up on his dream as a comedian and get a day job or abandon his responsibility and be a total dick. Only when Tash tells the full truth does a third possibility emerge...This story recounts the all too relatable experience of a fleeting sexual encounter and the hilarious mess it can create. It details all the things you think you know about safe sex and is inspired by the true story of a comedian in crisis.'The honesty shines through this funny, poignant page-turner. Finished it in one sitting. I just had to know!' — Dave Hughes'Simon is one of the top comedy writers out there.' — Jay Leno'This book will enable you to enter the mind of a comedian, but then you may have to call someone to help you get out.' — Akmal Saleh

    Instead of black bag drops in Bangkok, she now spends her time leading a young Girl Scout troop. But Merry's new simple life turns not-so-simple when an enemy agent shows up dead at scout camp. Suddenly Merry is forced to deal with her former life in order to preserve her future one. It doesn't help matters that the CIA sends in her former, sexy handler to investigate…or that the hot new neighbor across the street turns out to be the local detective in charge of her case. And when Merry is forced to take on a roommate in the voluptuous form of a turned KGB agent/bimbo, things become trickier than wet work in Waukegan or cookie sales in the spring. Nothing in the CIA or Girl Scouts' training manuals has prepared her for what comes next… Mint Cookie Murder (book #2) Ex-CIA agent turned suburban scout leader, Merry Wrath, is just trying to live a normal, quiet life. But all that goes out the window when a convicted traitor (who’s inconveniently not in his prison cell) dies on her doorstep, and an obese cat, who bears a disturbing resemblance to Hitler, decides to move in. To make things worse, it’s time for the annual troop cookie sale, her new boyfriend’s old college flame shows up to win him back, and someone’s shooting at Merry in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. Is the assassin after her or the cat? Is Riley, her hot former CIA handler, hitting on her? Is Rex, her boyfriend, going to dump her? Will she sell enough cookies to take her troop to Winter Sniper Camp? If Merry doesn't find answer to these questions soon, it may be too late! Marshmallow S'More Murder (book #3) What could be better for former CIA agent turned Girl Scout leader Merry Wrath than taking twelve little girls to Washington DC for a bit of summer fun? Almost anything. Unfortunately, between her girls terrorizing the Secret Service and "accidentally" destroying the hotel pool, Merry has her hands full with this troop. And when her former handler, Riley, is kidnapped Merry has to turn to an old friend from her spy days and her parents, Senator and Mrs. Czrgy, to help her wrangle the troop and rescue the man she once briefly called her boyfriend. Armed only with a perpetually AWOL parent, stalked by a runaway King Vulture, and plagued by a mysterious death from her past, Merry's mayhem weaves a wacky trail from moonshiners in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the bowels of the Japanese Embassy, to the ductwork of the International Spy Museum. With things heating up with current boyfriend, Detective Rex Ferguson, can Merry decipher clues from her past to find ex¬-boyfriend Riley and finally solve the murder of Yakuza boss, Midori Ito, before the target on her back is filled with lead?

    And yet, when she finally does have something like that life, as a wife and mother in 1980s London, she is the one blaring music from her room, necking vodka and valium and making an almighty mess of her home and family.Cleaning other people’s houses, eventually, is the only option left. At 50 years old, post rehab, living alone in a Hackney bedsit, Michele finds herself finishing her working life as she had begun, “in a dumb job that you do when you can’t really do anything else...”This is a remarkable, powerful, and often unbearably funny memoir in which cleaning and getting clean intertwine as a strange and magical form of redemption. Michele Kirsch is a Nora Ephron for the modern age.

    After appearing for 10 years on the hit BBC show, Ola is now moving on and reveals all about her past in this book.

    But I was raped. I didn’t care much about what happened to the guys who raped me. If they died, if they lived, it didn’t matter to me. All I feel now is anger.

    GET YOUR HANDS ON THE NO.1 BESTSELLER BY YOUTUBER SAFFRON BARKER#SaffronBarkerVSRealLifeRelationships! Confidence! Make-up fails!In a world of perfect social media lives, one girl is battling to make it through completely unfiltered (well, almost).Immerse yourself in Saffron Barker's wonderful, comical, and often challenging universe as she slays her teenage years with flair and enthusiasm (sometimes).No tricky stone is left unturned as we follow Saffron over a year of her crazy life while she sets herself a series of goals, tries ever more elaborate ways to convince her brother to appear in a video, and tells the world she's coming to get it.

    It hasn't always been pretty, and there's no way to sugar-coat ugly.So, if you're easily offended or faint of heart, my book may not be for you.If, on the other hand, you think your life is over cause you've made a mess of it, turn the page.Have I got a story for you?

    British girl Megan Stephens tells the true story of how an idyllic Mediterranean holiday turned into an unimaginable nightmare when she was tricked into becoming a victim of human trafficking and held captive for six years by deception, threats and violence.While on holiday with her mother at a popular Mediterranean coastal resort, Megan fell in love. Just 14 years old, naïve and vulnerable, she had no reason to suspect that the man who said he loved her would commit the ultimate betrayal of her trust.When her mother returned to England, Megan stayed with Jak, who said he would find her a job as a waitress and promised they would be together forever. But when Megan travelled to the city with Jak, his attitude quickly changed and instead of finding her work as a waitress, he allowed her to be raped and then sold her to a human trafficker.Abandoned by Jak but still unable to accept that everything he’d told her had been a lie, Megan was coerced by threats and violence into working as a prostitute in private homes and brothels. Then the trafficker threatened her mother’s life and it was Megan’s turn to lie: sending her mother the staged photographs that had been taken of her apparently working as a waitress in a cafe, she told her she was happy.Too frightened and bewildered to trust or reach out to anyone, Megan remained locked in a world of brutality and abuse for six years. In the end, there only seemed to be one way out.Megan’s powerful story reveals the devastating realities of human trafficking and the fear that imprisons its victims more effectively than any cage could ever do.